[PrincessAlisa]

Hi, if the father's name is not on the birth cerficate, does he have full rights of the child. If I decided to put child(s) in foster care,does he have to sign an agreement as well since his name is not on the birth certificate(s)? Thanks For responses

[shygrneyzs]

If you decide to place your child into foster care or later place that child into adoptive services, without notifying the biological Father, yes, you could get into some legal trouble. This man still has his parental rights, even though he does not know he is the Father. Since you have not given him the opportunity to express his interest or disinterest, if he should find out about the child and your actions, you could see yourself in court. To make everything you do is done legally, you should notify him of his child. It could well be that he will show no interest but that is his decision to make. You should not be making that decision for him.

[don8]

If you don't want the child why not give the biological father the chance to raise his child? He should at least get the opportunity if he wants the baby. And yes he will still have to sign the papers if he does not want it or like shygrneyzs said you could find yourself in some serious trouble.

[PrincessAlisa]

Hi, yes the father is no good for a woman, or to raise a child. He has been on Cocaine, marijuna,estasy etc. He is currently on drugs now(I don't know what).I've tried to be in a relationship with him and make it work.It did not help,he continued to do drugs and abuse me.I have some suspicions that he may have been abusing the children but I don't know for sure.This man has been in and out of jail so much that I can write a book about it.I found out about him being in jail from my father(He looked him up online and pulled up his Jail Record).So you see there's no hope,I don't know what to do.He is saying that he do want the kids and don't mind raising them, but I don't want him too.He might abuse them or influence them to smoke drugs!

[Fr_Chuck]

Yes not being on the birth certificate does not take away any of his rights, except he would have to take a DNA test to prove he is the father.
But in general he could easier file in family court for joint custody, or visitation. So you will have to get his permission

[1badchoice]

The father does have rights... if he knows of the child(ren) or mother knows who father is... That said... most states will not allow a child to be put up for adoption without doing an exhaustive search for bio dad. Putting a child in foster care is inviting a world of problems in your life. Child welfare would then get involved and be sure things are OK before giving kids back. Foster care is a branch of child welfare. If the mother insisted she didn't know who father was... father didn't know of possible child(ren)... I'm sure going through these options would be possible but not without a bit of hoop jumping. Basically, the father has rights but without him being recognized or aware of child(ren) many times he loses out. Cathy

[shygrneyzs]

Is this man the Father of all your four children? From what you stated here, he does know about the children. Then you two need to settle this in family court. Just because you do not want him to have the children is not enough reason. He may well be the man you say he is - and then again, this could be a story. We do not know. The wisest thing to do is to contact a lawyer in Family Law, if you cannot afford one, contact your state's Legal Assistance - they represent on a sliding scale fee.

Is this man paying child support? How much back support does he owe now? You can go after that too. Get a lawyer to work out these things for you. If you do not want this man to be near the children, you need to take some action.